Les Francais sont arrivé

Or something like that... Well I now truly have no excuses any more to avoid to get cracking with the project since the pre-1812 French from HäT arrived.

It took my 3 nights to get everything off the sprues but now I can get on with prepping them for painting.

The size is a tad smaller than the former releases, but since I have to head-swap just about every single one of them, they will grow a bit anyway.

Cheers

A little bit of progress!

Just another small post to show you things are progressing at a steady pace. Here are some of the British Firing line figures base-coated.

They'll be painted soon!

Cheers Sander

Happy New Year!

Hoi,

A short post to tell you guys I am finally gearing up for war in earnest here. I have managed to sort out the British and Allied troops I already own and this resulted in a major scare because I am seriously lacking in marching British (and thus Portuguese)  troops. But for now I will start with the  3 units of Wallace's brigade standing in firing-line. As you can see from the photo below, I have converted some Revell Brits with HäT spare heads in order to create some diversity in the line.

One of the biggest pro's with doing this is that you can alter the pose by turning the heads and that creates a more natural looking situation.
Normally I would use Pattex powergel to stick the figures on, but instead I used Valejo plastic filler. This has the positive effect of filling the gaps left between head and collar and that's good for a better fit but also a better look.

It will take me quite some time to get these chaps painted there being an odd 80 or so, therefore I will let you know when there's something to show!

Cheers Sander

Salamanca Day 2017

Dear folks,

Yeah I know, another year gone by without updates, this is the traditional  Salamanca day update and I have some news.
The reason why the project  has stalled for so long is the lack of good and affordable 1812 French infantry. Sure I could convert them but takes too much time, sure I could also go for white metal but that is rather expensive.

In the meantime HaT has produced  suitable French which are on the verge of being  released and this has prompted  me to start the project for real this time. In December the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge will start and I am planning to paint the figures during the challenge.

Anyway if all works out this blog will be more busy soon!

Cheers Sander

Salamanca day again...

Hoi There,

Another year without much progress...or so it seems! For the last few years I have been much in doubt whether I would be able to finish this project due to a lack of decent early French infantry figures. None of the available French sets offered enough decent figures in marching poses compatible with the HäT British.
Now this dirth of good sets seems to have come to an end, HäT have released testshots for both pre- and post-Bardin regulation figures including flank companies in greatcoat and a pre 1812 command set. Pictures of all these testshots are shown below.

Now when these Frenchies are released in earnest, I will buy a load and get planning and painting in a more serious way. So for now, yet again, you will have to be content with just a small peak at a possible future although the sun is shining more brightly on this little horizon at least. In the real world it is a bit more grimm...

Cheers Sander

Salamanca Day 2015

Hoi,

While I would love to show some progress on the project itself today in honour of the Anniversary of the Battle of Salamanca I will show you something else. Today's update brings you some painted HäT test-shots of the British Light Dragoons from the Peninsular War era. These are very nice figures with two of them having pegs instead of right arms which you can choose yourself from several available ones brandishing a variety of utensils like pistols swords and a bugle.

For these I chose the uniform of the 14th LD's with slightly orange-ish facings. Why this regiment? Well I couldn't decide what regiment to paint and than Fate kicked in because while reading Wellington's Military despatches I stumbled along the Duke mentioning a skirmish between the 14th and Massena's advance guard in 1810 somewhere along the Lines of Torres Vedras. So it was decided that I should depict the 14th and here they are.

Enjoy!

9 months have gone and passed...

Hoi,

As is the destiny of this blog it has taken me about 9 months before I have been able to get the project to the next level. The last two weeks I have  been off from work and thus I took out the diorama and gave the plates their final layers of paint. The paint used are two colours of Valejo textured paint. I started out with Brown Earth and dry-brushed it with Desert Sand.
Now I just have a few spots to touch up and than I will have to decide whether I want to put on a layer of gloss varnish to help protect the surface.

 Well without further ado, here are the pictures.

An overview of the entire table:

A look from the Allied left flank upon the French position:

A look from the French position (upon the hill) down to the Allied position:

The upper half of this picture shows the position of the British Artillery, upon the heights and in the lower left corner there will be a clash of French and Portuguese cavalry.

Cheers Sander 

Hoi,

Well July 22nd is the day that the Battle of Salamanca was fought in the year 1812. Followers of this blog concerning my "Big Project", the first phase of the battle is what I am trying to depict on a 1,50m x 1,50m diorama, will not be surprised by this commemorative post.

While progress is still very slow, I have decided to try and finish painting the groundwork plates this Summer. Anyway, I couldn't let slip this day without thinking about the day the battle itself was fought on. The other blog is far more active due to the fact I use it to showcase all my other hobby projects, yet Salamanca is never far from my mind....

Next phase: Priming!

The project is entering the next phase in it's development: priming of the plates! Some days ago the weather was finally good and dry enough for me to basecoat all the dio plates with Rat Fur primer from Armypainter. Sadly I had used up all my primer (3 spraycans!) with 1,5 plates still to go...
Oh well, I guess I need to go to the shop for a new one then ;-)

I took a lot of pictures but most are overexposed, so I only have 2 more or less decent ones to show you guys:

Cheers Sander

Landscaping: a good start of 2014!

Hoi,

Let's start with wishing you all the best for 2014! If 2013 has been rather slow, progress in 2014 is off with a bang. I have managed to put some muck on the diorama modules. This is a mix of wall-plaster, white wood glue and modelling grit. 

This left the plates looking pretty much like this:

Not bad at all, but they had some unnatural straight lines made by my painter's knife during the application of the muck. Which I sanded off before finishing the plates with a layer of thick gloss varnish.

When all plates were supplied with some varnish, which I applied to make sure that the plaster-mixture is less sponge-like, one of the plates had dried enough for a test-layer of spraypaint. I am using Army painter Rat Fur for this and due to lighting problems it looks a lot more reddish in the pictures then it does in real life.

The whole lot drying in their cases:

For highlighting the plates I have obtained a pot of Valejo desert colour structure paint, which I am anxious to apply and see the result of but time is the enemy here!
  
That's it again for today's update!

Cheers Sander

Cazadores

Hoi,

A while ago I've posted pictures of the 60th Rifles skirmishers that will be forming the light infantry screen in front of my Allied 3rd brigade advancing on Thomieres division. Last week I managed to paint some more figures which will represent the 12th Portuguese Cazadores to accompany the 60th Light Bobs.

The brown uniform colour turned out a bit too bright, but I reckoned that since they had been in the field in summer for quite some time, their uniforms would have faded a lot by now. Another realisation dawned: I need to paint about 3000 figures for this dio; the level of painting detail has to come down a bit to enable me to do this within my lifetime.Seeing this, these figures are not my best work ever yet not my worst by far.

So another small step towards the end goal!

Cheers Sander

83rd Regiment of Foot

Hoi,

This time I am not even going to apologise for the long absence of posts here on this blog. I knew from the start that this project was going to be one for the long run. Most of my hobby-stuff ends up on the other blog, so for regular updates you should look over here.

That said work has not altogether been reduced to nil over here. In a recent bulk shipment I acquired a lot of British Peninsular Command sets from HäT and have been able to put together the set up for one of my Salamanca regiments.

The 83rd of Foot was amongst the second line brigade advancing upon Thomieres division with Pakenham's Fighting 3rd Division, well actually it was Picton's division but he was sick at the time of the battle. In my calculations the regiment (actual strength on the day was 319) should amount to 70 odd troops so I put these together on the table to see how it looked and well it looks like this:

Now a few things are not totally historically accurate, the formation is a bit off for the regulations of the day. The officers and nco's I've put behind the line should actually be interspersed amongst the ranks in between each company. The musicians should be put behind the line but I found it visually more attractive to put them together with the pioneers behind the mounted officers. But to limit the frontage of the regiment I have chosen to put them behind. In this regiment the companies are all about 8 man strong, as figures of the regiments involved varied greatly, form the huge 2 battalion 5th Regiment of Foot, counting 1210 actives on the day, up to the 3 companies of the 60th Rifles amounting 254 troops. It would be nicest if I would be able to adhere to the figures I have counted out but I guess I will be settling for less...

Cheers Sander

200 years!

Hoi,

It's rather a special day today: exactly 200 years ago the Battle of Salamanca took place! I'm a bit sorry that the diorama is not ready to commemorate this feat but hey you can't have it all!

Cheers Sander

An update: finally!

Hoi,

As usual progress on the "Big Project" has been tiresomely slow! But I did find time to finish some of the 60th Rifles awaiting on my desk. Since my last post I have realised I do not need quite that much figures as I'd intended at first so I decided these to be the last Rifles I'd paint for the dio, excepting the officer which I still have to do. The remaining 10 or so Rifles I've prepared will be painted as Cazadores.

Here are the pictures of the lads. The other batch had grey trousers these rankers wear brown ones.

Here they're still mounted on sticks for ease of painting. I'll cut them off soon, but leave a little wire attached to the feet in order to secure them to the modules firmly.

Cheers Sander

Doing the numbers...

Hoi,

A while ago I laid out the modules in my table again, and just to try out how it looked I took some HäT Peninsular British and set them on the board where they will end up in time for real. This made me realise that I have made a startling mistake in the first place: my ground-scale and figure-ratio are not compatible! I had planned the first British brigade to have regiments of about 250 figures each, after putting figures on the board this showed that I can have regiments of about 40 figures instead!

This means I will have to do the numbers all over again. But on the bright side is the notion that I will be able to finish earlier since I have to do less figures.

Cheers Sander

2012 and all that!

Hoi,

Yes yes I know: I have been neglecting this blog immensely last year! This came to be because I hold the opinion that it is better not to overflow a blog with nonsense posts (like this one) and rather update it with real news. So 2012, the 200 year Jubilee of the Battle of Los Arapiles has come round and I should at least get something done on the diorama before the year's end. Some friends suggested I'd get the entire work done this year to celebrate but that  won't work since I'd rather have quality then a job done too fast and therefore badly. Besides there's the problem regarding the French- and Portuguese infantry miniatures or rather the lack there of as described elsewhere in this blog. At least HäT have announced they have picked up work on the British Peninsular Light- and Heavy Cavalry which is great in any case.

So we come upon my New Years Resolutions for 2012. I'd like to divide this in two types of resolutions: first the goals I really have set myself to actually fulfil for this year:
- painting the remaining skirmishers of the 60th Rifles still sitting on my workbench.
- creating the groundwork/ terrain on the modules so as to make them ready for the placement of the figures.

second up are the resolutions I would like to finish but I realise I might not actually get them done.
- paint up some of the first line British regiments
- paint up some of the French train of equipage that I want to accompany the marching columns including the artillery that supported Thomiéres Division.

Oh well we'll see how much I'll get done in real life :-)

As always I'll keep you posted and in the meantime you're invited to see what's distracting me on the other blog!

Cheers Sander

French Fantasies

Hoi,

It's a bit of a sketchy title to this topic, I admit it, but bear with me and all will be revealed in due course. Anyone checking the HäT website has discovered that their 1:72 scale French Napoleonics have gotten a separate page all to themselves 


http://www.hat.com/currentF.html

On this page masters and drawings of the new French MAC infantry sets are show:

French 1815:
http://www.hat.com/Prev/NFrench/Bx8294Mast.html


http://www.hat.com/Prev/NFrench/Bx8295Mast.html


and French pre-1812
http://www.hat.com/Prev/NFrench/Bx8296Mast.html

http://www.hat.com/Prev/NFrench/Bx8297Mast.html

It's about the latter two sets I'm thinking a lot lately. For the diorama I will need heaps of pre-1812 Frenchies of course, and while it is perfectly possible to make such a force of combining all kinds of existing plastic and metal figure sets, I really want my figures to have an overall same-ish look. The new HäT British Peninsular Infantry will set the benchmark (with some converted Revell Brits mixed in for diversity) and this is no problem as most other troops I have for the project will mix with those nicely: Italeri Hussars and Revell Chasseurs of the Guard as the 3rd French Hussars, Revell Life Guards as Portuguese Dragoons and Revell and HäT British artillery as... well RHA and RFA obviously.

The real problem at the moment is the French infantry as stated above. The present HäT 1812 Big Box is not a bad set at all but the figures are pretty chunky and very different in style to the newer Brits and French Légère MAC sets and while I could opt to alter several sets of the latter into regular infantry it would take a lot of work.
Seeing these shots of the pre-1812 masters has convinced me to wait for them and start with the Brits already lying around here. The drawings clearly show the panoply of separate head-options were gonna get with the French sets and these are superb for my purposes because I want to depict the rigours of campaigning in Spain at the time and have a big diversity in headgear and colours of clothing.

Other opportunities arise as well with the spare heads in these sets like using the Tarletons provided for AWI light troops. Or converting Dutch Light cavalry into British Peninsular LD's since the announced HäT set on Peninsular cavalry has been a little slow in progressing so far. The shako's included will be great for loads of conversions: i.e. I want to make several wargames units of French Artillery with shako's rather then the horrible Italeri busby's or the bicornes on the latest HäT set because I don't do the very early Napoleonic Wars.

Still the problem with all this is: we'll have to wait for a while yet before these figures become available. Argh! I want it all and I want it NOW! as the popular saying goes...

While I got a grip on myself again, let's talk about the MAC system. HäT has come up with, in my eyes, one of the best ways to sell plastic troops in current production by dividing the sets in 3 boxes: a box with Marching figures, a box of Action poses and a Command set. Now we can buy just as many boxes as we need figures and so will not have poses lying around which we have no use for and do not need to buy even more boxes to fill out our units with enough troopers that we do need.This system does have an Achilles heel: it will save us money because we need to buy less boxes but will leave HäT with lower sales... Hopefully we will all buy more of these sets in total then we are buying sets that leave us with spare poses but all the same it's a humongous gamble HäT is willing to take for the convenience of us customers; thanks heaps guys!

For my Salamanca project this just works out great indeed, since I need but a few action posed French and quite a lot of marching ones. So I will keep my fingers crossed the progress on these sets is speedy and without much of the trouble which happens during the production process.

Well that's my ramblings for today,

Cheers Sander

They have arrived!

Huzzah!

As I posted earlier today, on the 196th birthday of the Battle of Waterloo, the diorama modules for my Salamanca Project have arrived at my home.

Hans Slaager of Waterloo and Cambrai fame delivered them this morning and together we unpacked them into my purpose build table. Without further ado I hereby present you some pictures of the occasion:

Hans showing the modules in their excellent cassettes.

Of course I had the honour to put in place the first plate in the table...

...and the final one!

Enjoying Hans' handiwork together.

If you have never seen any of Hans' work up close and personal you cannot begin to perceive how excellent and with just how much eye for detail he makes his masterpieces. This isn't only true for his landscapes but also for the cassettes they come in. It all fits like a glove.

At first we were a little afraid the modules wouldn't fit in the table, but as we put them in place we discovered we actually have about 2 cm's to spare, which is no problem since it makes retrieving the modules from the table easier by far.

I'll make some detail shots later on, and leave this with just one more really big THANK YOU to Hans.

Cheers Sander

***Newsflash!***

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Breaking news this afternoon: on the historic day of 18th June 2011 the long expected Diorama Modules will arrive here at home-base!

Huzzah!


Cheers Sander

Blogger trouble!

Hoi,

I am having some trouble with placing comments on other peoples blogs but now on my own as well so sorry if you're not getting a reaction you'd hoped for!

Quick reaction to the chaps who commented on my last post:

@Matt: thanks mate, that's sound advice and I will wait for them.

@ Peter: your blog is brilliant, nice stuff. Sadly the diorama will not be finished next year or even the year after that, because of the 1:1 project that will be ready in september and from then on will probably request all of my free time. Besides for someone without a car or driver's license it's nigh on impossible to get anywhere with a big diorama...

Cheers Sander